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Nursultan Nazarbayev, Longtime Leader of Kazakhstan, Says He’s Resigning Longtime President of Kazakhstan Surprises Region by Resigning
(about 3 hours later)
MOSCOW — The 78-year-old president of Kazakhstan, the oil-rich former Soviet republic in Central Asia, announced Tuesday that he was resigning after 30 years in power. MOSCOW — After 30 years in power, the aging president of Kazakhstan jolted the oil-rich former Soviet republic and the region at large on Tuesday with the surprise announcement that he was resigning.
The announcement by the president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, one of the longest-serving leaders to navigate the breakup of the Soviet Union, was considered a surprise. Nursultan Nazarbayev, 78, the last surviving president in Central Asia to have steered his country to independence after the Soviet Union collapsed, stepped away from running daily affairs, but maintained considerable authority over the sprawling country sandwiched between Russia and China.
He made his announcement on national television, but did not indicate precisely what future role he might play in the Kazakhstan hierarchy. While Kazakhs welcomed the announcement as the potential start of a new era, analysts surmised that the Kremlin would see it in a negative light by drawing attention to the nearly 20-year-old leadership of President Vladimir V. Putin and his lack of a clear succession plan.
“Until my dying day, I will stay with you,” he said. “Concerns of the people will stay my concerns.” Mr. Nazarbayev called the decision to resign difficult.
Mr. Nazarbayev has led Kazakhstan since 1989, first as the leader of its Communist Party and then as president. He has attracted enormous investments from foreign energy companies to develop the nation’s oil reserves, which, at an estimated 30 billion barrels, are among the largest of all the former Soviet republics. “As the founder of the independent Kazakh state, I see my task now in facilitating the rise of a new generation of leaders who will continue the reforms that are underway in the country,” Mr. Nazarbayev said in a nationally televised speech that soon led the news in neighboring Russia as well. “Until my dying day, I will stay with you. The concerns of the people will stay my concerns.”
He has also maintained a cordial relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, where Mr. Nazarbayev’s resignation announcement was repeated on Russian state television. Mr. Nazarbayev said he would hand over his presidential powers immediately to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the speaker of the upper house of the parliament, which always approves Mr. Nazarbayev’s actions. Mr. Tokayev, 65, a former prime minister and foreign minister, will serve as acting president until elections scheduled for 2020.
Mr. Nazarbayev, an authoritarian leader, faced no prominent rivals for power and is not known to have groomed any successor. He won the last presidential election in 2015 with nearly 98 percent of the vote. Mr. Nazarbayev, a steelworker and Communist Party leader who rose to power in Kazakhstan in 1989, when it was still part of the Soviet Union, will continue as chairman of the powerful Security Council as well of president of the Nur Otan party, which dominates the country.
He said that the speaker of Kazakhstan’s upper house of Parliament, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who formerly served as foreign minister and prime minister, would serve as acting president for the remainder of Mr. Nazarbayev’s term, which ends in 2020. “The real levers of power remain in his hands,” said Irina Petrushova, the founding editor of Respublika, a now-defunct independent newspaper.
While Mr. Nazarbayev has helped triple Kazakhstan’s oil output and taken a number of popular measures, including raising the salaries of public workers, rights groups consider him one of the most politically repressive leaders. During his autocratic rule, he won repeated elections with nearly 100 percent of the vote each time, often jailing political opponents or journalists who criticized him. Mr. Nazarbayev attracted enormous investments from foreign energy companies to develop the nation’s oil reserves, which, at an estimated 30 billion barrels, are among the largest of all the former Soviet republics.
Amnesty International’s assessment of Kazakhstan has faulted the government for restricting trade unions and nongovernmental organizations, allowing torture and other ill treatment in detention facilities, discriminating against women and people with disabilities, and subjecting journalists to politically motivated prosecutions. In foreign policy, Kazakhstan adroitly balanced between its two giant neighbors, Russia and China, while also maintaining friendly ties with the United States.
That juggling act is expected to continue whether he is succeeded by a relative or a close political ally. Possible successors from his rich but unpopular family include his daughter, Dinara Kulibaeva, or his nephew, Samat Abish, the deputy head of the National Security Committee.
Analysts suggested two main reasons for Mr. Nazarbayev’s decision to step aside now. First, he wants to organize an orderly transition that will preserve his legacy. After Islam Karimov, another Soviet-era autocrat in neighboring Uzbekistan, died in office in 2016, Mr. Nazarbayev watched as the Uzbeks jailed the former president’s allies and dismantled his security services.
“He was conscious of his own international prestige,” said Marlene Laruelle, the director of the Central Asia Program at George Washington University in Washington. “He thought it would be good to be remembered as a president who stepped aside and did not die in power.”
Second, although Kazakhstan enjoys considerable oil wealth, the economy has stagnated in recent years with widespread public grumbling about a low living standard and poor social services.
Mr. Nazarbayev fired his entire Cabinet in February for having failed to address social problems, but “did not want to become the punching bag” attacked by the public as those issues persist, said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a Washington-based consulting group that analyzes political risk.
Having endured three decades of the same ruler, Kazakhs, especially those politically active over the years, hoped for change. “After 30 years of a total swamp, any movement is positive,” said Ms. Petrushova.
In Moscow, Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for President Putin, said the Russian leader had called Mr. Nazarbayev, but refused to comment further. The resignation was welcomed in Russia by members of civil society, which is also grappling with an increasingly domineering state.
“To leave alive, independently and with dignity, even without going far away — this is probably the greatest mastery for a leader of a country like Kazakhstan. Or Russia,” wrote Max Trudolyubov, a Russian political commentator, on Facebook.
Analysts suggested that the change would exert pressure on the Kremlin, which once ruled Kazakhstan and was the model for its repressive system, to address the succession issue.
Mr. Nazarbayev was “sending out the image that Russia is unable to find a solution while Kazakhstan has,” said Ms. Laruelle, even if Mr. Putin, at 66, is much younger and was just elected last year to another six-year term. “It is indirectly, symbolically, putting pressure on the Kremlin.”